


Before We Were Ancient

by Sivvus



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-16 01:32:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3469442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sivvus/pseuds/Sivvus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set before FFVII. Sephiroth captures a young woman from the City of the Ancients. What begins as a SHINRA mission to unearth Cetran secrets turns sour when the girl's valuable memories are stolen away. Hojo's interest in the Ancient grows ruthlessly inhumane, while Sephiroth's own interests become increasingly... confusing.  SHINRA fractures from within as Hojo fights for everything the girl remembers and Sephiroth defends everything she forgets.  S/OC</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before We Were Ancient

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SinisterSandman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinisterSandman/gifts).



> This is a story I originally wrote when I was eleven. I'm completely rewriting it, but one feature that I won't be changing is that it has rather short chapters. Don't worry, there will be plenty of them! ;-) 
> 
> Gifted to my brother, because we learned to love Final Fantasy together.

The motion of the vehicle woke her up. She stared groggily around the darkness from where she was laying. Sharp, artificial light penetrated the gloom through the outline of a double set of doors opposite her. She was lying on a hard pallet, which was secured to the floor by a series of hard plastic clasps.

She tried to get up, and that was how she found the short chain fastened around her wrist. With a sigh, she sat tailor-style on the pallet and rested her aching head in her hands.

“Where…..am I?” The girl whispered.

No answer was forthcoming, so she tried to focus on different thoughts. With a shock, she realized that she couldn’t remember anything! She froze, frightened. She couldn’t even remember her own name……

The constant swaying of the van stopped, and she looked up sharply. Footsteps were coming around the side of the van. Instinctively, she reached a hand to her side, groping for – what? A blade, a weapon?… A sword? No. Her dagger……then she realized there wasn’t a weapon there. She lowered the hand again, and focused on the doors. 

The hinges didn’t even creak, but slid smoothly apart with the click of the lock. 

The doors opened slowly.

A man in a blue uniform stood in the doorway, bathed in the constant bluish light. His face and hands were covered in scratches and bruises and parts of his uniform hung in bloody tatters. He glared at the girl, who met his eyes blankly.

“Well, little Miss Ashli. Despite your efforts to prevent it, you are now in Midgar. Are you going to cooperate?”

Ashli stared at him, and slowly nodded. The man groaned as he climbed into the back of the van, and produced a key from a pocket. He cautiously unlocked the chain, and then grabbed the girls’ wrist before she could run away. 

She was surprisingly docile, considering how she’d single handedly flattened an entire unit. 

He pulled her out into the cold roaring air towards Shinra HQ.

Now she was bathed in the blue light, Ashli could see that she, too, was covered in bruises and scratches. Her head throbbed menacingly near her left temple. She was wearing a green shift, which tangled round her legs in tatters. Lank strands of dark brown hair fell across her face, and she brushed them aside with her free hand.

The man, flanked by three or four companions, flinched at the girl’s movement. Ignoring the sniggers of the other soldiers he dragged her into an elevator at the side of the building. He produced a keycard and typed the number 67 into the programmer. On an opposite lift, a strange mechanical creation made an odd beeping noise, and for a moment they were bathed in a circling beam of yellow light. The robot's massive arms swivelled back, and it wasn't until they clacked back into their holsters that Ashli realised that the immense metal limbs had been fully loaded machine guns pointed directly at them. 

_What is this place?_ She thought, and shivered. Whatever was on floor 67, it was very well protected. And, if that robot had anything to do with it, whatever went up to floor 67 was going to _stay_ there. 

It took a long time for the lift to reach the top of the building, and Ashli wondered how tall the place was. It seemed too go on forever, and the lift was as eerily silent as the well-oiled hinges in the armoured van had been. She might have asked the men, but by the way they held themselves and their hands near their guns she understood that it would be a bad idea to try. They remained silent during the long stretch of time. Eventually the doors opened, and Ashli was marched out of it to stand in front of a desk.

Sitting at the desk was a young man who raised his sharp chin with an air of authority. He was dressed entirely in black; long silver hair contrasted starkly against the leather, which made him look far more stylish than he probably intended, given the careless ink blotches which patterned his hands. His green eyes flicked momentarily over the group in front of him, and then returned to one of the books on the desk with an air of utter indifference.

“We have brought the infiltrator, sir!” Announced the leading guard. Ashli blinked at him, and faced the other man with a mental shrug. Infiltrator didn’t mean very much.

“Looks like you had a bit of trouble, lieutenant.” The man drawled. The man holding Ashli dropped her wrist and glared at the man.

“She put up a fight, Sephiroth! You didn’t want her killed, so we had to stun her. Strangely enough, she didn’t want to be stunned!” He snapped. The man called Sephiroth looked up sharply at the outburst, and for the first time his dispassionate eyes narrowed.

“I am ‘sir’. Do not address me on familiar terms. I wouldn’t lower myself to being familiar with the likes of you.” His focused shifted; his eyes sharpened. Jumping out of his chair, he sprinted to the door in time to catch Ashli as she ran desperately towards the only exit. 

Seizing the girl tightly around her arms, he propelled her back to the guards. She stood there numbly, swaying slightly.

Ashli hadn’t expected to escape. This man had danger written all over him. But even if she didn’t know her own name, she knew that she shouldn’t be here. Now she tried to catch her breath and pressed a hand to her head, feeling her racing heart thudding in the bruise. 

“Watch your damn prisoners, lieutenant! She could have escaped- and we still need to question her.” Sephiroth’s voice was clipped, utterly composed and impassive even after his eerily fast reaction. If he cursed at the guards it seemed to be more due to his utter disdain for the men than any real anger. 

He continued to issue commands to the guards, one gloved hand still gripping Ashli’s arm. Her head spun. She had absolutely no idea what was going on, and the throbbing on her head had increased to a loud roaring. A red mist slowly crept over her eyes…….

Sephiroth instinctively caught the girl when she collapsed. 

He admitted to himself as he looked at the slow trickle of blood pooling in one of the girls eyes that he was mildly annoyed. Damage to the brain always took far more than a few simple cure spells to fix, and that meant that the questioning would have to wait. Why couldn’t those stupid guards have been more careful? 

Slowly, easing the prisoner down on to the floor, he gave his dead-voiced orders. “President Shinra shall hear of your incompetence in looking after prisoners, lieutenant! Now get this girl to the medical ward.”


End file.
